Even covered in blood, gnawing on a disembodied arm, Drew Barrymore is adorable.

It’s that charm and sadistically hilarious way at which she’s going at the appendage that goes a long way in selling her latest endeavor, Netflix’s campy cannibalism comedy “Santa Clarita Diet.”

In the series, premiering Feb. 3, Barrymore plays Shelia, one half of a California suburbs realtor supercouple (“Justified’s” Timothy Olyphant is her husband, Joel) who are at a place in their marriage and their life — they are also parents of a sardonic teenage daughter — where comfortable has segwayed into complacent. She wants to be 20 percent more bold and he wants a toast oven that works.

Fortunately for the vanilla couple, they are about to get a jolt of mid-life energy when Sheila undergoes a strange and, frankly, disgusting transformation and winds up undead and craving human flesh.

In this current “Walking Dead”-dominated TV landscape, another zombie show is not the most appealing hook. But where the AMC juggernaut commits to its undead reality with an bearable amount of seriousness, “Santa Clarita Diet” aims to poke fun at the absurdity of zombies and the idea of one nestled behind the seemingly perfect facade of suburbia.

It does so with a sense of humor that won’t be for everyone — think midnight B-movie — and an accompanying tone that takes a few episodes to fully form. But once it clicks, thanks to Barrymore and Olyphant’s wholehearted commitment to and deadpan delivery of the insane story in front of them, the show is a surprisingly satisfying.

Barrymore, in particular, is having a blast as a women untethered by the normal inhibitions of a 40-something wife and mother. Driven by the insatiable urges of her id, Sheila’s now more sexually aggressive, more brazen in her confrontations (watch out nosy neighbors!), more willing to take risks and tempt others to follow in her footsteps (who doesn’t want a Range Rover?), and more likely to rip out the jugular of a stranger whose rudeness she would have previously brushed off.

Barrymore also proves to be quite skilled at slipping into the role of a cannibal with ease. While still a suburbanite at heart — she wears a visor at one point, for crying out loud — she also becomes a stone-cold predator who gleefully kills her prey and then devours it casually at dinner like it’s meatloaf while her slightly mortified family looks on.

Despite her new moral freedom, there’s still a depth to Sheila that Barrymore smartly mines for emotion, as she tries to rationalize how to best protect her family from herself and their impossible situation. She’s a mother first, even in death.

Likewise, Olyphant, coming off his dramatic run on FX’s “Justified,” is strikingly good as her somewhat dopey husband who’s grappling with the sad reality the wife he knew and loved is gone.. Now he has to figure out how to satisfy what’s left of her, which quickly devolves into murder.

“Santa Clarita Diet” revels in a gleeful disinterest in restraint, ratcheting up the gore at times to a stomach-turning degree. At first it’s for show, particularly when Sheila first become sill and coats a model home’s bathroom in an ungodly amount of vomit. Seriously, don’t be anywhere near food when watching this show.

But as the story progresses, the gross-out gore and tongue-in-cheek humor become a more precise vehicle for the show’s parody of the zombie genre and even the suburbs.

In episode four, Shelia breaks out a blender to make a protein smoothie of frozen body parts, which she takes on a morning jog with her fellow suburban mothers. Elsewhere, a brutal murder in the backyard is explained away to the neighbors with landscaping tips.

As it gets a better grasp on its voice, the show’s humor becomes sharper and its developments are genuinely entertaining, while Barrymore and Olyphant only strengthen as a pair of fumbling murderers thrust into a crime spree.

There’s a odd sweetness in a story of a couple recommitting to each other by agreeing to killing people so one of them can eat. T

The show’s indulgence in gore and dry humor will likely prove too much for some viewers that will bail before this slow burn even gets going. But for those with an appetite for something different, “Santa Clarita Diet” will certainty satisfy the craving.

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